I don't really agree with some people here who have posted the use of various instruments as a cliché. For example the minimoog has been used in practically every type of music imaginable, so I don't see how that can be a prog cliché. It's just an instrument that a lot of people like. It's like saying a cliché in Jazz is playing the saxophone, it just doesn't make sense. To me a musical cliché is more about what you play, not the particular instrument you are using.

A good example of a musical cliché would be the use of the C am F G chord progression in pop music. I have a hard time coming up with a good example in prog though, maby because of the "anything goes" mentality that often is pretty strong in prog, I dunno.

I don't really agree with some people here who have posted the use of various instruments as a cliché. For example the minimoog has been used in practically every type of music imaginable, so I don't see how that can be a prog cliché. It's just an instrument that a lot of people like. It's like saying a cliché in Jazz is playing the saxophone, it just doesn't make sense. To me a musical cliché is more about what you play, not the particular instrument you are using.

Labelling a Minimoog as a prog cliche is especially amusing considering subtractive synthesis instruments like the Minimoog, ARP 2600/Odyssey, Cat Octave, VCS3, etc are based on the principle that you can "synthesize" any sound imaginable from the square/triangle/ramp/sine oscillator starting point.

A Minimoog doesn't sound like Wakeman/Emerson/Moraz/Wright unless you specifically set the controls that way

"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa

Zappa pretty much hit the nail on its head.

Face it: rock journalism is not about music. It is about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll: sexual escapades of rock stars, drug problems of rock stars, and violence at concerts, from musicians smashing their guitars to riots in the audience. And that's why rock journalists hate prog: it doesn't give them stories - the "boring old farts" syndrome. Progressive rock musicians and fans are simply too disciplined - they must be in order to write, play and enjoy music of this kind of complexity ;) Of course, that means that there would be enough to write about the music, but most rock journalists just don't really care about that. A rock star ODing on heroin (preferably at age 27) gives them a story; a band doing a 20-minuter in sonata form doesn't.

I think you'll find critics are faddish creatures, always jumping to the next thing. I'm sure they probably did like prog at one point, until it went out of fashion.

Do you think there are token, overused chord progressions in prog just like in popular music? Either I haven't developed an ear for picking them out yet, or they simply don't bother me as they otherwise might do. I can hear recycled progressions in some bands across their albums, but I attribute that more to their individual sound and songwriting quirks rather than some genre-wide cliché.

There must be hundreds: complex time signatures, jazz sections, overuse of mellotrons, making songs longer for the sake of it, trying to hard to be experimental, playing fast loud sections (mainly from early King Crimson, but also Yes, ELP, etc.), using interesting instruments like the sitar just to sound somewhat varied, and so on.

Trying to think of the last ever truly progressive album and I'm struggling to get into the 90s so far I dont consider the post-rock stuff that new, or Anglagard/Spock's Beard/etc. Dream Theater's Metropolis comes close but there are still many cliches there... Possibly Marillion or late Genesis and Rush?

There must be hundreds: complex time signatures, jazz sections, overuse of mellotrons, making songs longer for the sake of it, trying to hard to be experimental, playing fast loud sections (mainly from early King Crimson, but also Yes, ELP, etc.), using interesting instruments like the sitar just to sound somewhat varied, and so on.

Trying to think of the last ever truly progressive album and I'm struggling to get into the 90s so far I dont consider the post-rock stuff that new, or Anglagard/Spock's Beard/etc. Dream Theater's Metropolis comes close but there are still many cliches there... Possibly Marillion or late Genesis and Rush?

I don't think it's possible to overuse a Mellotron. Or a Chamberlain or Novotron. I just never tire of that sound. There's something about it, regardless of what tapes are used, that excites the very stem of my brain.

1. The falling out of a key player (hah, hah) after a mushy gatefold LP.
2. The unceremonious sacking of his brilliant and enjoyable replacement
after the following milestone album and backing tour.
3. The ditching of a long-time co-founder after a health scare.
4. Hiring a tribute band wannabe to replace him while still trying to
pass itself off as the original product.

1. The falling out of a key player (hah, hah) after a mushy gatefold LP.
2. The unceremonious sacking of his brilliant and enjoyable replacement
after the following milestone album and backing tour.
3. The ditching of a long-time co-founder after a health scare.
4. Hiring a tribute band wannabe to replace him while still trying to
pass itself off as the original product.

Wait a minute! I just described Yes!

Wait a minute--The Yes Album is "mushy"? How so?!

You've also described Journey, on #4 anyway, which they embraced to the extent that he was featured on a recent PBS pledge about how Journey "returned".

1. The falling out of a key player (hah, hah) after a mushy gatefold LP.
2. The unceremonious sacking of his brilliant and enjoyable replacement
after the following milestone album and backing tour.
3. The ditching of a long-time co-founder after a health scare.
4. Hiring a tribute band wannabe to replace him while still trying to
pass itself off as the original product.

Wait a minute! I just described Yes!

Wait a minute--The Yes Album is "mushy"? How so?!

You've also described Journey, on #4 anyway, which they embraced to the extent that he was featured on a recent PBS pledge about how Journey "returned".
I was talking about 'Topographic Oceans.

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